Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake #5) - Rachel Caine Page 0,66
will be better for everybody.”
I yank my truck door open and climb in. Start the engine. I put the phone on speaker and drop it on the seat. “Tyler, I’m coming to you, okay? Let’s sit and talk awhile. Can we do that?” I know that thin edge he’s on. I stood there many times in the past few years, before Gwen stretched out a hand to me and pulled me back to the world. Lots of times nothing seemed worth it, nothing seemed real enough. It’s a very bad place, when you hear the dead whispering to you that things will be easier if you join them.
A fall off that bridge might not kill him, but he’d drown. This time of night, traffic on the bridge is low, and it would be the work of a few seconds to step over the rail and into the dark.
Tyler isn’t answering me. I speed up. “Tyler? Still there, man?”
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m just tired, Sam. I’m just real tired.”
“I know you are. I know how it feels. But I’m coming, and you won’t be alone. Okay? Promise me you’ll wait for me. Please. You don’t know me real well, but you know I’ve been where you are right now. I can show you a way back. Okay?”
He thinks about it for an agonizing, silent few seconds. I glance at my speed. Well over the legal limit.
Then he says, “I’ll wait.”
“It’s going to take me about ten minutes. Stay on the phone with me. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
He starts talking. I’m listening, but mostly I just want him to stay engaged. He talks about finding a photo online of his family, about how it took him back to one particular Christmas just before his sister was taken away. I understand that. Memories are a drug, and sometimes they have a rush to them that brings a horrible, hollow emptiness after. I still remember the last video call with my sister while I was deployed. I’d had to cut it short. I still replay it in my mind and think about what else she might have said, what else I could have done to keep her in my world just a little bit longer.
Tyler is doing the same thing, but he’s got nothing to hold on to. His sister’s killer was never caught, and that never-ending suspense and despair makes people lose faith, lose love, lose hope. My mystery was solved.
His may never be.
Five minutes away. I keep an eye out for patrol cars. If I dared, I’d try to make a call to the cops and send them to the bridge, but the trust I’ve established with Tyler is as fragile as a smoke ring; if he thinks I’m going to betray it, he’ll be gone before they can stop him.
And what if this is something else? A little voice in the back of my head, a cold one, has doubts. You don’t know this kid. What if he’s luring you?
If he is, I’m armed, and I’m not going down easy. Tyler doesn’t strike me as someone who’d be physically aggressive, but if he is, I’m ready for that.
“Sam?” His voice is faint now. Tired. “I just want to go now. Thank you for trying.”
“No, Tyler, don’t do that. Come on, man, stay with me. I’m three minutes away. You can wait three minutes, right?” I’m hurtling there like a comet. I can see the lights of downtown. The bridge isn’t far. I blow through a deserted red light and keep moving.
“I don’t want to wait.”
“But you called me for a reason,” I say. “You wanted me to know. And I do want to know. You’ve got more to tell me. I know that.”
I keep talking, not even sure what I’m saying anymore; I see the green superstructure of the bridge up ahead; it’s built under the bridge, not over. The lights illuminate the roadway, and I can’t see any cars stopped in the narrow breakdown lane on either side. It’s only a two-lane bridge, and no traffic at all.
I slow down, afraid I’ll miss him; even so, I spot him at the last second. He’s wearing dark pants, a dark hoodie, and he nearly blends into the night.
He’s standing on the concrete ledge, legs pressed against the green steel. It’s an easy, effortless step over.
I hit the brakes and fight the wheel to steer the truck into the narrow space of the breakdown lane, and I bail out